The Definitive Modern Zombie Movie

Rating: 9/10 (30 April 2016)

The key to a great post-apocalyptic movie is contrasting the loud with the quiet. Everyone knows how important the loud parts are. Who wants to watch a post-apocalyptic movie with no action. Okay, maybe I would, but that's not the point. The survivors need to run into cannibals or evil military leaders or zombies or something to keep the audience's attention up. I've kept this in mind as I write my own dystopian novel, "Coming to You Live From the end of the World", coming out about two years after I get someone to represent it.
But shameless advertising aside, quiet moments are as important. Relentless action doesn't give you time to breathe in your environment and get to know your characters. Even MM:FR had a good fifteen minute block of quiet in between all the madness. Any post-apocalyptic environment is by definition quite different from normal. That difference needs to be explored. Sometimes, it's ugly. Sometimes, it's beautiful. Sometimes, it's both. But it's always interesting when done right.
And 28 Days Later definitely does it right. This is the best zombie movie I have ever seen. It is not the best piece of zombie fiction I've ever seen. The Last of Us and McCarthy's The Road are superior, and if I am to be honest, calling them zombie fiction sounds more than a bit demeaning. They are more than that. This, on the other hand, while there are a lot of themes bouncing around, is definitely a zombie movie. And despite what I have earlier said, that is not a bad thing.
At the beginning of the movie, a group of crazed activists try to free a couple of monkeys that are being experimented on. The scientists try to tell them that the monkeys are infected, but like any group of people committed hard to a cause, they don't listen, and the monkeys are set free. immediately, one of the monkeys bites the activist and turns them into a zombie. Thus, the apocalypse starts.
28 days later, the entire country of Britain has been decimated by the apocalypse. A man, Jim, who had been in a coma, wakes up and starts exploring the ruins in one of the movie's many great sequences. Soon, he meets two survivors, a man and a woman. The man gets overtaken by zombies, but the woman, Selina, survives, and the two of them run off. They soon meet up with an older man and his daughter, and the four of them make their way to Manchester, where a cure for a virus is said to be.
The film does a great job of taking from the classic zombie formula while adding its own twists and turns and wrinkles, and the result is a brilliantly paced, brilliantly shot, brilliantly scored film that revived the zombie 'genre'.
Our four protagonists have great charisma together. You want to see them survive this. You want to see them go off and prosper. That kind of investment is always important, but it's especially important for these types of movies, which would otherwise make the viewer rather apathetic.
You never know which way they're gonna go, and so you're on the edge of the seat throughout the entire movie, but you never feel cheated or disgraced. Everything feels earned. And you are less confused at the end of the movie than you were at the start of it, which is the way these things are supposed to work. Bravo.
I also love how this film fixes a lot of the problems I have with zombie films. This is not the first movie to make zombies move fast, but it was certainly a good decision. It makes everything feel more real, as does the decision to employ some sort of logic and reason. Don't worry- you won't get bogged down with information, but you will be enlightened. Movies like this don't have to employ completely sound logic, but if they do employ some sort of logic and stick to it, the atmosphere is enhanced.
28 Days Later is enjoyable, terrifying, and a stunning piece of art. If you're interested in zombies or post-apocalyptic fiction at all, watch it.